Mindgames

Chapter 27: The Bearer

Mariah discarded the thought of running away to free Gabriel of the burden of her. That would be no favor to him. He would be wracked with guilt and worry until she was inevitably found and punished, and then he would be wracked with more guilt and worry.

Gabriel whimpered in the bathroom. Mariah closed her eyes and held her breath until he quieted. She clenched her fists. She had to bring him relief.

He wouldn't let her help him physically, but she could ease his misery this very night. She needed only to find a human to speak to the Bearer.

This time the sound Gabriel made was more of a groan. Mariah couldn't wait another moment. She raced to Master Animal's apartment. It was empty, but the door to his studio was half open. Rose was inside, painting. "Where's Master Animal?" Mariah asked breathlessly.

It took Rose a moment to look up from her canvas. "Where is he?" Mariah demanded.

"He's in the arboretum," Rose said. Mariah blinked, confused at the unexpected reply. "It's a full moon tonight. He's painting. He won't be back for hours."

Mariah deflated. "Where in the arboretum?" she asked. Rose didn't know, but Mariah understood it wouldn't have made any difference if she had. The arboretum was a long walk from here; the nightwatchers would be out before Mariah made it there.

"I need you to take care of Master Gabriel for a while." Without waiting for a response, Mariah turned and ran out to the corridor and along to Mistress Tabitha's quarters. There was no answer to her knock. She pounded at the door, and then turned the knob. It opened, but the apartment was empty. She looked for Raul in the laundry area and in the supply closet, with no success. Even if she found him, he might not know where Mistress Tabitha was, or she might be far away like Master Animal.

Who else could she go to? She recited to herself the healers and vets Master Gabriel knew, but shook her head. None of them would listen to her. Master Stefan? Mariah did not know where he lived.

She ran back to Master Gabriel's apartment, and flung open the door to his bedroom. Rose shushed her. "He just fell asleep," she whispered.

"I need to talk to him," Mariah said, but she kept her voice low.

Rose shook her head. "Right now, he needs to rest."

Mariah nodded. She knew that waking him to argue again would serve little purpose. She would not be able to convince him that he was wrong about the Bearer.

She would have to talk to the Bearer herself.

The last time she had seen the Bearer he had pointed a knife at her sex and threatened to cut her if she if she provoked other humans into hurting Gabriel, or went beyond the freedom he allowed her. She had unintentionally done the first, and now she was about to do the second. It was madness.

Gabriel cried out in his sleep.

She had to do it.

"Stay with him," she said to Rose.

In the living room she paused to take a breath. The Bearer would turn her away, or punish her and then turn her away. She must find a way to catch his interest long enough that he would listen to her. She crossed to the credenza and took a piece of paper from the top drawer.

"Are you going to draw something?" Rose asked, startling her. "I can get you better paper."

Mariah shook her head. She rolled the blank paper tightly and tied it with a ribbon. "I have to go."

Rose looked out at the setting sun. "Where? It's late." She sounded worried.

"To the Bearer. If I'm not back by the time Master Animal comes home, tell him." She refused to listen to Rose's protests. As she opened the door she said over her shoulder, "Take care of Master Gabriel."

She barely held herself back from running through the corridors, which would only attract attention. One Mistress tried to question her, but she waved her beribboned paper and said she was on her master's errand. The mistress nodded and let her continue on her way, at the fastest walk she could manage.

At last. A housegirl answered Mariah's frantic knock on the door to the Bearer's quarters and told her he would was in the throne room. Following the girl's directions Mariah half walked, half ran through the corridor, desperate to get there before the nightwatchers started their shift.

She was breathless when she arrived at the antechamber. A guard stopped her as she tried to enter the throne room and asked her business.

Mariah held up her paper. "My master sent me with a note for the Bearer. He said it's urgent."

The guard rolled her eyes. "They always think it's urgent," she said. "I'll see that he gets it."

"No, Mistress!" Mariah took a step back, and the guard put her hand on her whip. "Please, my master said I must give it to the Bearer myself."

The guard looked at Mariah with pity. "It's a mindgame, girl. Your master knows as well as I do that the Bearer won't see you personally. Leave your note with me, and then go home and face your punishment."

"He will see me!" The guard lifted her whip, and Mariah fell to her knees. "Please! Tell the Bearer that Master Gabriel sent me!"

The door to the throne room opened and a man peered out. "Shsh," he admonished them.

Mariah scrambled halfway to her feet and dove through the door. The guard's whip cracked down on her back. Mariah barely noticed. The guard grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head up with one hand, and grabbed her breast and twisted it with a practiced force with the other. At the same time she apologized to the room.

"Master Gabriel sent me!" Mariah shrieked as the guard dragged her back across the threshold.

"Hold, Parma." At the Bearer's order the guard stopped, but did not release her grip on Mariah's hair or breast.

The room was completely silent for a moment. "Release her," the Bearer said. Giving Mariah's hair one last yank, the guard dropped her. Mariah fell to her knees. When the Bearer did not speak she went lower, placing her forearms and her nose on the floor.

"You have a message for me from your master?" Mariah kneeled up. The hardness in the Bearer's face belied the mocking tone in his voice.

"He ordered me to give it to you privately, Master," Mariah said, careful to keep her voice respectful.

There was a rustling from the other humans in the room, but the Bearer held out his hand, implacable, as if he had not heard Mariah. She hesitated but had no choice. Her heart hammering, she slowly rose and approached the Bearer on his dais. He took the paper from her and sank down in his gigantic armchair. He untied the ribbon and unrolled the note. His face did not change as he looked at it. He carefully rolled it up and held it in his hand. "You will wait," he said, and turned back to the human before him. A guard took Mariah by the arm and started to lead her to a bench on the side of the room.

"Delarus!" A mistress stood up. "Are you going to let that rag make a mockery of your throne room and not punish her?"

As the guard pushed Mariah down onto the bench the Bearer stared at the woman who had spoken. "What are you questioning, my motives or my methods?" he asked, his voice deceptively soft.

The woman flushed but was not cowed. "Everyone knows you favor the outland healer and his slaves." She stood up, pulling a houseboy to his feet next to her. "What kind of example does that set for my boy? He'll get uppity ideas himself."

"My dear Elaina," the Bearer said, "no slave has ever been ruined by the sight of a rag tripping over her own feet in an effort to do her master's bidding. If you can't control your houseboy then trade him in to someone who can." He turned away from her, ignoring her sputtering.

To distract herself from her pounding heart Mariah looked around the room. The Bearer's daughter, Mistress Diana, sat next to him on the dais. She was staring at Mariah, a puzzled look on her face, and turned away only when her father conferred with her. The Bearer never glanced in Mariah's direction.

Other humans, some with slaves, were scattered on a mismatched collection of ornate chairs and benches. One by one they approached the Bearer with what struck Mariah as odd mishmash of concerns. One man wanted to burn down some woods to make new pastureland. The Bearer curtly dismissed another who protested continued use of the rape factory, and listened with a concerned frown to a woman who told him about incompetence by a hall monitor who was growing forgetful. Mistress Elaina went last. She complained that the pony races were encroaching too close to the north gardens. The Bearer took her complaint under advisement.

The Bearer watched the door close behind Mistress Elaina. He turned to Mistress Diana and sighed wearily. "Sometimes I think the tradition of open supplicant night should be limited to those who pass an intelligence test first."

Mistress Diana shrugged. "It's useful enough, you've said so yourself." She held out her hand. "Can I see Gabriel's letter?"

"No. Go home now, or find some fun."

Mistress Diana pouted, but she picked up crutches and hobbled down the steps from the dais. She stopped in front of Mariah. "Tell Gabriel he needn't come to see me because I'm sure he's busy and I'm doing fine without him," she said. She started to continue past but said over her shoulder, "Tell him I'm out of the wheelchair." Again she started to leave, stopped, then shook her head and kept going.

The Bearer dismissed his guards and slaves and crooked his finger at Mariah. She came to the bottom of the dais and waited, her knees knocking.

"Did your master tell you what he wrote to me?" The Bearer sounded genuinely curious. The weariness he had displayed to his daughter was gone.

Mariah took a deep breath, clinging to the hope that the Bearer's concern for Master Gabriel would prevail over his desire to keep order. "My master didn't send me," she said, forcing herself to look at the Bearer. "I pretended to have a note from him so that you would see me." She fought the urge to turn and run.

The Bearer blinked, and Mariah felt a small victory at having surprised him. "Have you forgotten our last conversation?" he asked. Again, he sounded curious.

Mariah tried to keep her voice steady. "I remember everything you said, Master." The Bearer raised his eyebrows, and allowed her to continue. "You told me that my master crossed a world to help your daughter, and that he has helped your wife and your son and you as well. You said that you protect him." The Bearer narrowed his eyes but nodded. Mariah fell to her knees, but did not look down. "He needs your help now." The Bearer waited, expressionless. Mariah took a deep breath. "He wants to go home."

Mariah thought there was a flash of relief in the Bearer's face. "Yes, it would be good if he left," he murmured. Then he glared at Mariah and spoke louder. "He does not need my permission to leave Riviera. He is no prisoner here."

"He needs your permission to take me with him." The words tumbled from Mariah. "He won't leave without me, and he won't ask you because he believes you will say no. But he doesn't understand that you care for him, more than you do for some ancient agreement." She continued, bitterly, "He doesn't understand that we all care for him."

The Bearer stared at her for a long moment. "Come up here, girl." Trembling, Mariah stood and climbed the five steps. "Kneel." He pointed to the space in front of him, and Mariah again fell to her knees. The Bearer raised her chin with his finger and looked into her eyes. Mariah felt, as she had in his chambers, that he was looking into her very soul. Her mouth went dry.

"If your Master takes you to Harmony, what will become of you there?" The Bearer's face gave no sign of his thoughts.

What place would there be for a slave in a land where slavery was forbidden? "I don't know, Master," Mariah said. "I just want Master Gabriel to get home."

The Bearer took his finger from under Mariah's chin. "You are a known and skilled liar," he said. A shadow of a smile crossed his face. "You had your former master Cassender almost wetting himself with embarrassment when he learned of the depths of your deception to him." He turned stern as he waved the blank piece of paper in Mariah's face. Mariah stopped herself from flinching back. "Tonight you lied in these very chambers. And now you ask a boon that has never before granted to any slave in all of our history, claiming that it is your master's dearest wish." He cocked his head. "Why should I believe you?" When Mariah did not answer immediately, he turned away from her with a shrug. "I'll have a guard escort you back to your master's quarters."

He was dismissing her. Panic. "Master, please! I'll tell you!" The Bearer slowly turned back to her and settled himself on his chair, tapping his foot impatiently.

Mariah understood her only hope of convincing the Bearer was to be honest with him. She knew that he would know if she was not. She forced herself to speak. She told the Bearer how Gabriel had intended to go to the Western fields but on the spur of the moment had made the terrible decision to take off his clothes, to be a slave, just for a little while, not understanding that he would become trapped. She paused, waiting for the Bearer to react, but his face was unreadable.

Mariah continued. She told the Bearer how a master and mistress had found Gabriel without a bracelet and taken him home with them. How he could not escape. How what to an actual slave would have been an unpleasant assignment was agony to him. Her eyes filled with tears when she described finding him bound and tortured, raped with a cactus dildo. The Bearer winced but still said nothing.

Mariah told him about how she, Animal and Rose had brought him home and had been caring for him as best they could, but how even as they sought to ease his physical pain they could not seem to reach inside his misery. Finally she repeated to him their conversation that had led her here tonight. Then she fell silent, having told him everything.

The Bearer didn't say anything for a time. At last he sighed heavily, then glared at her.

"Why did he do it?"

Mariah knew than that she had not told him enough. She took a deep breath. "Because of me, Master," she said. "It was my fault."

The Bearer snorted. "I've never known Gabriel to take counsel from anyone, nor to act the fool on their advice. What makes you think you could influence him?"

"He does take counsel from people, my lord," Mariah sputtered. "He listens to Master Animal, and to other healers, and he wanted to visit the western fields to learn from the slaves there."

The Bearer shrugged. "That may be," he said. "But why would he listen to you, a mere rag?"

Mariah realized he was toying with her. That knowledge made her calmer. If he had not punished her yet, perhaps he would not. So she told him of the fight she and Gabriel had had in the western mansion, of how she had taunted him that he could never understand what it was to be a slave, and then had left him. "That's when he took off his clothes," she said. "Because of what I said." She bowed her head, ashamed.

Although Mariah felt that she had laid bare her soul for the Bearer, he wanted more. "Why was it so urgent that to come to me tonight that you risked your life and limb? And your sex?" Mariah shuddered. Perhaps he would punish her after all. "You could have convinced your master to talk to me himself."

Mariah looked down. "Not right away, I couldn't have," she said. "And I couldn't stand for him to keep suffering, not even for one more night."

The Bearer cocked her head. "Why not?"

Mariah's face burned. "I have unnatural feelings for him," she blurted. The Bearer shrugged. It was not enough. Mariah had not convinced him. She had admitted to Gabriel, and to Animal, the deepest part of herself, but she trusted them. How could she tell the Bearer, who filled her with terror merely by looking into her eyes?

She would do it because she had to. "I love him!" She had not meant to yell. Despite all her training she covered her face with her hands.

Silence. When she dared to look up the Bearer nodded at her. He believed her. He was not angry. "Does your master think he returns those feelings?" he asked her.

Mariah almost laughed at her own stupidity. Of course, the Bearer would be interested only in her master, not in her. "He told me slaves can't love," she said.

"Ah." The relief in the Bearer's tone was unexpectedly tempered by understanding and pity. "An unkind thing to say, if not unwise."

Suddenly he sighed. "This is not the first purported letter from Gabriel I have had today; nor is it the first private audience I have given." He reached into a pocket of his trousers and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. He unfolded it and handed it to Mariah.

The paper was smudged with dirt on both sides. Mariah looked at the writing on it without understanding.

The Bearer said, ticking his points off on his fingers, "This is what I knew before today. Gabriel failed to keep his appointment to travel to the Western fields, but was not at home either. More than a week later, a bearded man, traveling with two housegirls and a houseboy, retrieved something from a closet in the far western wing of the mansion, put clothes on the boy, and proceeded in a rickshaw to an apartment in Gabriel's wing of the central mansion. Gabriel appeared in his apartment at about that time, too sick to see anyone. The only people to go in or out of his apartment since then are you, Animal, Animal's housegirl, and a stablemaster."

As the Bearer spoke Mariah's first reaction was astonishment. Then she was furious at the rickshaw driver who had broken his promise not to speak. Finally she was even more disturbed by the reports of the comings and goings from Master Gabriel's apartment; someone from his own hallway was reporting on him.

The Bearer held up his hand to forestall any comment from her. "This morning, Landon and Pomona came to my offices and insisted upon seeing me alone. They gave me this letter." He took it back from Mariah. "It is from your master, addressed to Animal. He writes of being mistaken for a slave, and begs for rescue."

Mariah blanched. "If Master Landon and Mistress Pomona know, he must leave Riviera right away!" she said. "He's not safe here!"

"You doubt my power, girl?" The Bearer glared at her, and Mariah shrank down.

"Forgive me, Master," she said.

The Bearer ripped the paper into pieces, and put the pieces in his pocket. "I'll not have him run away like a rabbit chased by coyotes. He arrived here as an honored guest, and he will leave as the same." He scowled. "After the spring rains have passed, if he is recovered by then." Although he was speaking out loud, he seemed to have forgotten Mariah was in the room. "But what to do about Landon and Pomona? Their housegirl's tongue will have to be cut out, at a minimum, or else she'll talk."

"Master, no!" Mariah forgot her fear of him. "Master Gabriel doesn't want Kevra harmed. He wants to help her!" She stopped, abashed at her audacity.

To her surprise the Bearer began to laugh. "You are bold, aren't you?" he said. "Do you ask that Gabriel take her to Harmony as well?"

He snorted at Mariah's immediate, emphatic denial. "Three's a crowd, is it?" he asked her.

Mariah blushed. "Master Gabriel doesn't like her," she said defensively. "But he promised to save her from Master Landon and Mistress Pomona."

The Bearer's eyes continued to glint with amusement. "What do you suggest, girl? What place is there where she can keep her tongue but not talk?"

Mariah thought. "She will talk," she said slowly. "But it doesn't matter. Master Landon and Mistress Pomona will talk. The rickshaw driver talked. One more gossiping housegirl won't make things any better or worse." The Bearer glared at her.